Ceremonies are to be staged around the world to mark one year since more than 200 girls were abducted by Nigerian militant Islamist group Boko Haram. A procession is being held in the capital, Abuja, with 219 girls taking part to represent each missing girl. The abduction of the girls in Chibok in north-eastern Nigeria sparked global outrage, with nations such as the US and China promising to help find them. There have been sightings of the girls reported, but none has been found. Boko Haram say the girls have converted to Islam and been married off.

(VIDEO-AND-AUDIO-AT-LINK)MILFORD, N.H. — Sen. Rand Paul claimed he’d be the Republican with the best chance of picking up black voters in the 2016 presidential campaign — and suggested a major scandal will soon threaten Democrat Hillary Clinton’s likely candidacy — during a stop here one day after announcing he’s running for the White House. “I’ve tried to expand the Republican Party by taking the message to places Republicans haven’t gone,” Paul said yesterday when asked by the Herald whether he is the Tea Party candidate in the race. “I’ve spent the last several years going to historically black colleges, going...

White House press secretary Josh Earnest says the success of U.S. foreign policy in Yemen should not be assessed in relation to the success or the stability of the country’s government, noting that the Middle Eastern nation — the region’s poorest — has long been in a “chaotic situation.” “The measure of U.S. policy should not be graded against the success or the stability of the Yemeni government. That’s a separate enterprise,” Earnest said in a roundtable discussion on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Thursday, adding that “the goal of U.S. policy toward Yemen has never been to try to build...

Mounting chaos in the region puts the administration on the defensive. Barack Obama faces a slew of Middle East crises that some call the worst in a generation, as new chaos from Yemen to Iraq — along with deteriorating U.S.-Israeli relations — is confounding the president’s efforts to stabilize the region and strike a nuclear deal with Iran. The meltdown has Obama officials defending their management of a region that some call impossible to control, even as critics say U.S. policies there are partly to blame for the spreading anarchy. “If there’s one lesson this administration has learned, from President...

The Washington Health Benefit Exchange call center in Spokane is so busy that staffing has been quadrupled, with the center receiving up to 10,000 calls a day. The problem is not enough of those callers are actually signing up for insurance. The state has enrolled 160,000 paying customers in ObamaCare exchange health plans but that's more than 50,000 short of goal, which has led to an extension of the enrollment deadline and a request that the Washington State Legislature fork over $125 million to fund the exchange. Republicans are angry because they were told the exchange would be self-sufficient by...

WASHINGTON — If someone were writing a book about America at this point in time, it would be titled “The Decline and Fall of Barack Obama’s Presidency.”In our 24/7 news cycle, the rush of events in the nation’s capital and around the world is seen as a collection of stories that come and go with lightning speed, then blotted out of our collective memory by the next “breaking news” report. If you listen to the explanations coming out of the White House, and from Obama’s speeches, he’s doing great and everything’s coming up roses.But if you connect the dots,...

If you want a sense of just how far-reaching the impact of a Supreme Court decision gutting Obamacare subsidies could prove, new data on health care signups released this week provide a fresh way to game out such a ruling’s consequences. The Department of Health and Human Services announced the other day that some 11.4 million people have signed up for health plans through federal marketplaces. The new HHS data also provides a breakdown of the number of sign-ups in each of the three dozen states on the federal exchange — precisely the states that would no longer get subsidies...

President Barack Obama saluted a pair of United States Marines on Tuesday while holding what appeared to be a styrofoam cup in his saluting hand, a breach of military regulations that won't win him fans among veterans and servicemen.

US Middle East peace envoy Martin Indyk has resigned following the collapse of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. A US official who spoke on condition of anonymity did not provide a reason for Indyk's departure, which had been widely expected after the two sides failed to meet their goal of reaching a comprehensive peace agreement this spring. Indyk will return to the Washington-based Brookings Institution think tank, the official said. US Secretary of State John Kerry confirmed on Friday that Indyk was leaving his post as top US envoy to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Kerry praised Indyk and thanked him for his...

As fresh word arrives of Islamic militants continuing their full-speed assault on Baghdad and executing thousands along the way, President Obama rushed back to Washington Monday to convene national security advisers on a path forward. Well, actually, that's not true. The commander-in-chief did not rush back at all from his long weekend getaway in southern California. He arrived in Palm Springs' sunshine Friday. Saturday he spoke at the University of California-Irvine graduation. He, of course, did a Democrat fundraiser, a feature of almost every trip nowadays. And then the president played golf, lots of golf. On Sunday he also phoned...

t’s been a disastrous couple of weeks for President Barack Obama. His signature legislation, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, is a slow-motion train wreck. His poll numbers have tanked. Now, things have gotten so bad for Obama that former president Jimmy Carter has called President Obama incompetent in the family-friendly pages of Parade magazine. “He’s done the best he could under the circumstances,” Carter said of Obama in an interviewed published on Thursday. “His major accomplishment was Obamacare, and the implementation of it now is questionable at best.” (RELATED: Jimmy Carter: America no longer has a functioning democracy)...

RomneyCare’s pioneering health insurance exchange is headed for the scrap heap. Bay State officials are taking steps this week to junk central parts of their dysfunctional health insurance exchange—the model for President Barack Obama’s health care law—and merge with the federal enrollment site HealthCare.gov. The decision is part of an expensive plan that would occur alongside a parallel, last-ditch attempt to still build a working state system. The state on Monday announced the hiring of hCentive, a Virginia-based contractor that helped construct the Kentucky and Colorado exchanges. The company would rush to build a viable state exchange in time for...

... About 200 of residents and game enthusiasts gathered early Saturday in southeastern New Mexico to watch backhoes and bulldozers dig through the concrete-covered landfill in search of up to a million discarded copies of “E.T. The Extraterrestrial” that the game’s maker wanted to hide forever.... The “E.T.” game is among the factors blamed for the decline of Atari and the collapse in the U.S. of a multi-million dollar video game industry that didn’t bounce back for several years. Tina Amini, deputy editor at gaming website Kotaku, said the game tanked because “it was practically broken.” A recurring flaw, she...

People trying to apply and enroll for private health insurance through Obamacare before Monday's midnight deadline discovered the website was "currently unavailable." Healthcare.gov, the online marketplace bedeviled by bugs since its launch last fall, went down for several hours Monday morning, a statement from the Department of Health and Human Services said. It was back online later in the morning after a short time when it put customers in a "queue," meaning they'd be notified by email when they could proceed with enrollment.

THE United States has once again twisted itself into a rhetorical pretzel. As when it threatened military action against Syria if a “red line” was crossed, the Obama administration’s rhetoric about Russia and Ukraine goes far beyond what it will be willing and able to enforce. Earlier this month, President Obama warned that America would “isolate Russia” if it grabbed more land, and yesterday, he suggested that more sanctions were possible. Likewise, Secretary of State John Kerry said the Group of 7 nations were “prepared to go to the hilt” in order to isolate Russia. But Washington’s rhetoric is dangerously...

As the White House scrambles to get people signed up for health insurance before the March 31 deadline, many uninsured Americans say they are still planning to take their chances and remain without coverage. A new study by Bankrate.com shows that about one third of uninsured Americans are going to remain without coverage and opt to pay the penalty. The survey results suggest that the administration’s outreach to uninsured people may be falling short, with more than half of people without insurance unaware of the March 31 deadline—and even more unaware of subsidies that could make their policies more affordable....

If you’d like the government to change something about Obamacare, give the White House a ring. They’re in a flexible mood. President Obama this week approved yet another delay to provisions in the Affordable Care Act, giving insurers until 2016 to sell a type of insurance policy that’s supposed to be banned under the health-reform law. The ban, which was supposed to begin this year, would prevent insurers from selling bare-bones plans that might be affordable but don’t abide by 10 “essential service rules” required under the new law. When insurers began canceling such coverage last year, however, several million...

(Reuters) - With Russia's incursion into Ukraine reviving Cold War-style tensions, President Barack Obama is at risk of suffering a blow to his credibility at a time when he can least afford it: as he tries to convince voters to stick with his fellow Democrats in congressional elections that will help shape his legacy. For five years, Obama has practiced a cautious approach to foreign policy crises, prizing sober diplomacy and the search for consensus over brinkmanship, in prolonged conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the deliberative style that Obama's team sees as a statesmanlike attitude in tune with Americans'...

Obama Threatens To Penalize Putin Over Ukraine By Kathleen Hennessey March 1, 2014 WASHINGTON -- President Obama told Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday that the U.S. may boycott an upcoming economic summit in Russia and threatened further penalties if Moscow does not recall its military forces from Ukrainian territory. In a 90-minute telephone call, Obama warned Putin that Russia faces "greater political and economic isolation," according to a White House description of the call. The president suggested the United Nations would take action for what he called a "breach of international law." http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/politicsnow/la-fg-wn-obama-ukraine-20140301,0,3474561.story#ixzz2ul7lzoFV

During the 2008 presidential campaign, GOP Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin made what has turned out to be a prescient remark about the relevance of a U.S. president's resolve and its potential impact on Russia's posture with the old Soviet Union's satellite states. She observed: "After the Russian Army invaded the nation of Georgia, Senator Obama's reaction was one of indecision and moral equivalence, the kind of response that would only encourage Russia's Putin to invade Ukraine next." Many in the press ridiculed that notion. Among them was Blake Hounshell, who was then blogging at Foreign Policy Magazine. Characterizing Palin's...

How much does it cost taxpayers to sign up one ObamaCare enrollee? In President Obama's home state of Hawaii, it's $56,819. The Obama administration gave Hawaii $205 million in grants over the past three years to set up its state-run exchange. But so far, only 3,614 Hawaiians have filled out applications — just 40% of the state's enrollment goal. Even if Hawaii were to reach its 9,000 target, it would still cost nearly $23,000 for each enrollee. Hawaii's low sign-up numbers have state officials scrambling to figure out what to do next year, when its exchange is supposed to rely...

A “massive and concerted attack” has been launched by a bot system on numerous bitcoin exchanges, Andreas Antonopoulos has revealed. This has lead to popular exchange Bitstamp putting a temporary halt on all bitcoin withdrawals. Antonopoulos, who is the chief security officer of Blockchain.info, said a DDoS attack is taking Bitcoin’s transaction malleability problem and applying it to many transactions in the network, simultaneously. “So as transactions are being created, malformed/parallel transactions are also being created so as to create a fog of confusion over the entire network, which then affects almost every single implementation out there,” he added.

Enough people were upset with my previous post claiming that Mt. Gox is suffering a bitcoin bank run because it is holding only a fractional bitcoin reserve that it caused me to think twice about the claim.I could have been wrong, but I doubt it.Actually, the backlash was strong enough that it made me think that perhaps I was using some common terms in strange ways. I referred to Mt. Gox as a bank, which is a stretch by some definitions, but it definitely stores bitcoin for clients and as such, acts as a custodian.Maybe it was the term “bank...

One in five Obamacare "enrollees" could have their plans cancelled for failure to pay their first month's premium. That figure is based on reports from health insurers themselves, some of whom have made 10 attempts to collect the first payment.

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: Well, listening to that excerpt from Ed Henry, you would think that's the campaign speech of someone running against Barack Obama. Obama is indicting the four years, the five years he's been president. He said the rich have done well, everybody else has stalled, inequality has increased. Well, the four years, the five years are his years. Essentially, he's saying my job now is to undo what I have done in the five years of my presidency. It's hardly sort of a ringing call to arms. I'm sure they now tested all of these words, inequality, opportunity, all...

“We were flat out wrong." That’s the message Cracker Barrel is sending to enraged customers after the restaurant chain removed Duck Dynasty items from its stores over fears it might offend people. “Our intent was to avoid offending but that’s just what we’ve done,” Cracker Barrel said in a statement posted on its Facebook page. “You told us we made a mistake. And, you weren’t shy about it. You wrote, you called and you took to social media to express your thoughts and feelings.” One of those customers was Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council. He said his...

Oregon, once touted as a model for President Obama's health care law, signed up just 44 people for insurance through November, despite spending more than $300 million on its state-based exchange. The state’s exchange had the fewest sign-ups in the nation, according to a new report today by the Department of Health and Human Services. The weak number of sign-ups undercuts two major defenses of Obamacare from its supporters. One defense was that state-based exchanges were performing a lot better than the federal healthcare.gov website servicing 36 states. But Oregon's website problems have forced the state to rely on paper...

(Reuters) - President Barack Obama blamed Republicans on Tuesday for contributing to the troubled rollout of his signature healthcare insurance plan and said it will be hard to "rebrand" Obamacare after his administration fixes a website used to sign up for the program. "We should have anticipated that that would create a rockier rollout," Obama told a Wall Street Journal conference."One of the problems we've had is one side of Capitol Hill is invested in failure," Obama said.Obama said he thinks the website will be fixed on time for people to "catch up" and shop for insurance by key deadlines,...

WASHINGTON - President Obama will allow insurance companies to continue offering individual health plans that do not meet the standards of the Affordable Care Act through next year, according to a Democratic source on Capitol Hill familiar with the plans. The plan, which the president will announce Thursday morning, is intended to placate millions of consumers who have received cancellation notices from insurers in recent weeks. Obama had repeatedly promised that consumers would be able to keep plans that they liked. The president was under intense pressure from Democrats on Capitol Hill to find a fix. House Democrats have increasingly...

Before Healthcare.gov’s troubled launch on Oct. 1, the White House estimated nearly 500,000 people would enroll in the Obamacare health exchanges within the first month and an estimated 7 million were expected to gain private coverage by the end of March, when the open-enrollment period is scheduled to end. Now – even before the administration can deliver on its promise to release an official head count of how many people have enrolled for insurance coverage in the first full month of operations – insurance industry analysts on Monday released figures showing the government has signed up a mere fraction of...

Update #2 after numerous requests from readers to update this story. The original posting is here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3079644/posts Update #1 is here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3083078/posts And now, update #2: The last contact I made was on October 31st, asking why the promised call back after 2 business days hadn't happened. I was told that they'd escalate it again and I'd get a call back within 48 hours, not including weekends. On November 6th I called in o tell them that those two days had elapsed and no call back had occurred. I asked for a supervisor who told me that the callback standard...

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was in Memphis, Tenn., for an education and outreach session about the health care marketplace, when a state senator presented her with a gift she didn’t appear to be happy to receive.

Call it "Survivor: White House" edition. Over the past week, one high-profile cabinet secretary managed to dodge an onslaught of Republican demands for her resignation while a lesser-known national security aide got the boot for a series of snarky anonymous tweets. In fact, history has shown that it's actually not that easy to get fired from the Obama administration. Over the past five years, just a few of those who serve at the pleasure of the president have been forcibly shown the door. Many more have weathered controversy and embarrassment and figured out a way to hold on for dear...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama on Monday said there was "no excuse" for the cascade of computer problems that have marred the rollout of key elements in his health care law, but declared he was confident the administration would be able to fix the issues. "There's no sugarcoating it," Obama said. "Nobody is more frustrated than I am." The president said his administration was doing "everything we can possibly do" to get the federally run websites up and running. And he guaranteed that everyone who wants to get insurance through the new health care exchanges will be able to....

The much-anticipated Windows 8.1 update was finally released on Thursday. Since then, however, early reports of bricked devices and lost data from some users indicate that the release may have been premature. In response, Microsoft took its Windows 8.1 update offline until further notice on Saturday. The Redmond, Wash. company posted the following a message to its website: Microsoft is investigating a situation affecting a limited number of users updating their Windows RT device to Windows RT 8.1. As a result, we have temporarily removed the Windows RT 8.1 update from the Windows Store. We are working to resolve the...

ObamaCare's impact on jobs is hotly debated by politicians and economists. Critics say the Affordable Care Act, with its employer mandate to provide health insurance, gives businesses an incentive to cut workers' hours. This year, report after report has rolled in about employers restricting work hours to fewer than 30 per week — the point where the mandate kicks in. Data also point to a record low workweek in low-wage industries. In the interest of an informed debate, we've compiled a list of job actions with strong proof that ObamaCare's employer mandate is behind cuts to work hours or staffing...

President Obama vowing that Syria would “cross a red line” by using chemical weapons is far from the only marker he’s laid down or promise he’s tried to keep since running for president in 2008. The president has made more than 500 campaign-related promises alone. And just last week he re-drew a line in the sand for congressional Republicans flirting with shutting down the government over his Affordable Care Act and looking for spending cuts as part of a separate deal to increase the federal debt limit. “That’s not happening,” Obama said. “I will not negotiate over the full faith...

The same day that the Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee announced last week that the Fed would continue to buy $40 billion in mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and $45 billion in U.S. Treasury securities per month, the Fed also released its latest weekly accounting sheet indicating that it had already accumulated more Treasuries and MBS than the total value of the publicly held U.S. government debt amassed by all U.S. presidents from George Washington though Bill Clinton. Since the beginning of September 2008, in fact, the Fed’s ownership of Treasury securities and MBS has increased sevenfold. As of the close...

The strategic mismatch between a seasoned KGB veteran and a neighborhood community organizer has been a disaster for America that has “reset” American-Russian relationships backwards. As former New York Mayor Giuliani told Fox and Friends: “The KGB agent is working him over… And unfortunately, he’s our president and he makes our country look so weak that it’s dangerous.” Little could we have imagined the consequences that would later unfold following Obama’s provident statement just prior to his first election: “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” He has kept that promise. Not since the...

The US threatened military retaliation against Bashar Assad after the Aug. 21 gas attack. When Congress balked, Obama embraced Russia’s plan for Syria to turn over its chemical arsenal. ‘I don’t think that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin has the same values that we do,’ the president said. But ‘we both have an interest in preventing chaos [and] terrorism.’ President Barack Obama sent a message Sunday to Russian President Vladimir Putin that his success in avoiding U.S. military action in Syria is not a blank check to prop up the Syrian strongman. A day after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry...

LOS ANGELES, September 16, 2013—The real news of September 16th, 2013 was that there was a tragic Navy Yard shooting in Washington, D.C. There were several fatalities. Initial details were not released. While most Americans recoiled in horror at an act of evil, President Obama treated it as an inconvenience and minor annoyance. The shooter altered the news story about the day, which was supposed to be an Obama press conference where Obama would resume his role as Self-Praiser in Chief of all things Obama. This day was the five year anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers. The plan...

President Barack Obama is damaging his presidency, weakening America’s standing in the world, and displaying “inexplicable” incompetence. The media figure making those accusations isn’t Bill O’Reilly or Rush Limbaugh, Charles Krauthammer or Glenn Beck. The critic doesn’t host a right-wing talk show, anchor a Fox News program, or write for the pages of the Weekly Standard. In fact, he’s not even a conservative. It’s Joe Klein, the Time Magazine political columnist. “Obama has lost some serious altitude: In the world, with the Congress, and most importantly with the American people,” Klein, a veteran journalist and political moderate, told POLITICO. Klein...

The left is on a roll. Liberals successfully pushed back against President Obama’s plan to launch airstrikes in Syria, and then quashed the expected nomination of Larry Summers as the next chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. That one-two punch from some usually loyal Democratic allies has left Mr. Obama in a weakened political state right as he enters tough negotiations with Republicans: to keep the government funded beyond Sept. 30, and to raise the limit on federal borrowing authority a few weeks later. Republican House Speaker John Boehner is having an even harder time getting his own base to...

When President Barack Obama decided he wanted congressional approval to strike Syria, he received swift—and negative—responses from his staff. National Security Adviser Susan Rice warned he risked undermining his powers as commander in chief. Senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer pegged the chances of Congress balking at 40%. His defense secretary also raised concerns. Mr. Obama took the gamble anyway and set aside the impending strikes to try to build domestic and international support for such action. He found little of either. Congress's top leaders weren't informed of the switch until just an hour or so before Mr. Obama's Rose Garden announcement...

The Democratic uproar that sank Lawrence Summers’s chances of taking charge of the Federal Reserve suggests that President Barack Obama’s clout on Capitol Hill is eroding ahead of crucial decisions about government spending and the debt ceiling. Mr. Obama often singles out House Republicans for blocking his agenda in Congress. But as his second term plays out, he also is confronting restive factions within his own party that are uneasy with some of his policies. The liberal wing in particular has rallied against his proposed use of force in Syria, his openness to changing entitlement programs and his apparent interest...

Even putting his best gloss on the case and even outright contradicting hard numbers from his own administration, President Obama has a tough time selling the current economy as a comfy place in which to live and do business. According to the White House's own five-years-later report on the fiscal crisis and the administration's wrassling therewith, Americans remain trillions of dollars in household income behind where they were in 2008. That's when the report is being honest—it also claims a TARP profit that will come as a surprise to Christy Romero, the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief...